


Routine Malaise

by ParanoidAndroid (HomesickAlien)



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: M/M, abuse mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 20:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16166039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomesickAlien/pseuds/ParanoidAndroid
Summary: it hurts until it doesn't





	Routine Malaise

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, Vanguard, you underrated baby fandom. I've always wanted to write for you, and I've been struck, truly, by the emo of KaiRen. I'm a pretty strong KaiAi advocate, but it's difficult to articulate just how Good KaiRen is and recently I've been thinking about it a lot more after talking to some buddies about it.  
> I think, middle school babies is the cutest, though, and I really wanted to write them at least once.  
> Originally, this was a short request fic on twitter, but I wanted to expand upon it cause the first draft was pretty terrible. And this is still terrible, but passably terrible. Please enjoy it! Let us all create and enjoy fanfics with the rise of V Series! Oh, Vanguard, you will never have a real fandom will you!!

Nothing could compare to this.

Kai is perfect in every way imaginable. He is everything Ren lacks; someone with the freedom to carelessly believe in his childhood ideals. Someone who succeeds at anything he chooses to set his mind to, a person undefeated and unfaltering regardless of what stands before him. Who’s prideful, and calm, and collected in every respect.

He hates him so much. He hates how free the world must be for him, so vast and endless for someone not confined by the restraints of parental abuse. It’s a childish way of viewing the world, but that’s exactly what Ren is; a pathetic child. A worthless child. A child with nothing at all to look forward to but this very moment. His third loss of the day.

Kai inspires him as much as he infuriates him. For the first time in Ren’s life, he has such a clear goal in life. Of what it means to be perfect, of what it means to be strong, he can imagine it but he can’t surpass it. That’s the infuriating part; no matter how hard Ren tries it’s like he isn’t trying at all. For Kai, their days together must feel like boring afternoons, but he keeps spending time with him none-the-less.

Even if it’s boring, or if there’s nothing to gain from it, Kai stays at his side. And they aren’t just playing against one another, anymore, but together as partners, as teammates. If he can’t beat him, the least they can do is keep improving together, but no one really compares to the two of them, after all.

They’re like soul mates, in that regard. One soul in two bodies, Their feelings resonate strongest against one another, and Ren is the only one who tries to keep up. He’s the only one who can alleviate the boredom in Kai’s heart, who can take his stress and repay it with his own. They’re terrible people for one another, both broken down by the weight of the world on their shoulders, but the conclusion they’ve reached is the same.

Everything resolved with Vanguard.

There’s a part of Ren that envies Kai and a part of him that’s grateful just to be at his side. Of all the stress, and frustrations, and jealousy, and adoration in his heart, it feels at times they all become one amalgamous feeling when he’s together alone with Kai. For just one moment, Ren wishes he could feel what Kai feels, to be at the very top of the world. For just one moment, Ren wishes he could taste that kind of freedom that would devour the fears he holds returning home each and every night after.

And he does taste it, by accident. Or rather, mindlessly, he leans a little too close to Kai’s face when they’re sitting next to one another, chatting, and brushes his lips against Kai’s lips. And it doesn’t taste like anything at all, doesn’t feel like anything at all, yet he can’t bring himself to pull away from Kai. Not for what must have felt like hours, like a lifetime spent trying to understand this sensation, that’s only half a minute before Kai speaks up.

“You’re hopeless, you know that?”

To his surprise, he’s not embarrassed at all.

And neither is Kai, he thinks. Rather, Kai’s smiling at him, and it’s the first Ren’s ever seen of it since they’d met. Admittedly, it hasn’t even been that long since their friendship awkwardly blossomed into their dreary worlds, but he feels a connection to kai unlike any other. They’re the only two people in existence that could ever understand one another. And this smile only brings them a little bit closer, to Paradise, it's a precious gesture Ren can't take light of.

That’s Ren’s image, at least. He can’t help but wonder what Kai’s is.

Ren leans his head down against the back of the chair he sits awkwardly in. He can’t help himself from staring at Kai too long, even when his elegant smile fades and he’s returned to his everyday frown, looking down at his deck. He’s a beautiful person, like God and the Devil becoming one. It’s difficult for Ren to articulate the clashing emotions he feels in the presence of Kai, that he wants to love him and surpass him all the same.

Rather, his goal of surpassing Kai is all he has to hold onto their relationship.

“Even in my imagination, Ren is a really hopeless guy.”

Kai isn’t a bad person. He’s terrible with his words and awful at expressing his feelings, but he’s not at a lack for them. There are times he worries about Ren, that his obsession with him might swallow Ren whole one day, but what could he do to change that fate? It hardly occurs to him to try at all, and their days of living comfortably at each other's side continue to grow shorter and shorter.

Even if he loves him so much, it’s painful to spend time with him. He doesn’t know what to do, for the first time in his life he feels entirely helpless.

He feels sorry for Ren, who started with an empty deck of cards and has been scouring the world to fill it with meaning. But he never takes it easy on him, or pities him as a pathetic person he’s always been viewed as. It’s the most he knows how to do; to fight seriously, and vent away his angst in a cardfight. If he could get his feelings through to Ren that way…

Wouldn’t it be so easy?

He burns holes into his card, his Dragonic Overlord. The card that best befits his image, that encapsulates all the painful feelings welling in his heart and burns them all to ash. He likes Ren, even if it’s only the image of the better times they’ve spent together. The times without fear or pain, but honesty resolved through cardfights. It’s easier, better, to express himself through action, and it feels there's only one possible action he could take.

Kai presses his lips once more to Ren, like he’s trying to prove something to himself above all else. And this time, Ren does feel he can taste a sweetness only Kai could bring him. He’s such a delicate person in ways only Ren gets to see. In ways that only reveal themself to someone after spending too much time alone, separately breathing the same air, sharing the same pains.

Ren thinks, he’s the only person in the world who can save this boy.

It’s all he has. He clings to it, to the desire to beat Kai so that he can keep hold of this love. To keep the world from collapsing around him, suffocating him, that he could survive any hardships tomorrow brings if only until the day comes he can usurp Kai from his throne of loneliness. To save him from himself, but who’s really saving who?

“Please fight me.”

Ren says, when Kai pulls away from him once more, and it doesn’t require acknowledgement. Kai would never turn down the offer when it comes from Ren. Rather, it’s the best thing he could offer to Kai, even better than a kiss, although that didn’t feel so bad either.

If, for even one more moment Kai could pretend nothing were changing, that they could spend a lifetime in peace together like this, he would do anything to salvage it. But despite everything Ren feels for Kai, Kai is ultimately a powerless person, watching their lives spiral out of control. The best he can do is sit and watch, and wait until it becomes unbearable that even a kiss on the injury could do nothing to heal their wounds.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment, thank you!
> 
> (the summary is from an song title, the title is from a grizzly bear song.)


End file.
